The Jolliest School of All, Angela Brazil [rm book recommendations TXT] 📗

Lorna, suddenly realizing that in her father's excited nervous condition she ought to offer consolation and soothe him instead of adding to his agitation. "It's very unlikely that he would find you out. Dad, don't grieve so, please!"

She went near to her father's chair and laid a timid hand on his shoulder. An immense gush of pity for him flooded her heart. If she had known this story before, she would have understood, and instead of thinking him unkind and misanthropic she would have tried to be a better daughter to him. The new-found knowledge illuminated all the past and seemed to draw them closely together.

"Mother would have believed in you, Dad," she ventured to say.

"Thank God she never knew! She was spared that at any rate. I raged against Providence when I lost her, but afterwards I felt she had been 'taken away from the evil to come.' Her relations thought me guilty. I went to them and explained, but they[92] practically told me I was lying. When I went abroad I never sent them my address. I just wished to vanish. I don't suppose they have ever troubled to inquire for me. Who cares about a ruined and disgraced man?"

"I care, Dad," said Lorna. "I'm only fifteen and I can't understand everything, but if you'll let me the least little bit take Mother's place, may I try? I'm not much, but perhaps I'm better than nobody, and we two seem all alone in the world."

For the first time in five years the barrier between them was down, and Lorna was hugging her father as in the old happy childish days. To know all is to forgive all, and her resentment against his treatment of her turned into a deep pitying love. She would never be frightened of him again. A new impulse seemed to have come to her. If she could in any way comfort him for what he had suffered, it would be something to live for.

"He's my father, and I'll stick to him through thick and thin," she said to herself fiercely, as she went to bed that night. "I don't know who this enemy is, but if ever I meet him I'll hate him and all belonging to him. I say it, and I don't go back on my word. I'll be my own witness as nobody else is present. Lorna Carson, you've taken up a feud and you've got to carry it through. May all the bad luck in the world come down upon you if you break your oath."[93]

CHAPTER VIII At Pompeii

Lorna returned to Fossato feeling as if she had passed through a great crisis. The short week-end and its revelation seemed to have added years to her life. She had never been a typical specimen of "sparkling girlhood," but her new knowledge made her more sedate than ever. It brought her both gain and loss: gain in the fact that she now shared her father's confidence, and could help him to bear his heavy burden, and loss in the sense of a yet wider division between herself and her schoolmates. She realized now, only too bitterly, why her father so persistently shunned all English people. It would surely have been better to have placed her at an Italian school than among girls of her own nationality. Lorna, naturally morbid and over-sensitive, shrank yet deeper into her shell, and became more sphinx-like than ever. Her one bright spot at the Villa Camellia was her devotion to her buddy. Half a dozen other girls had at various periods tried to "take Lorna up," but all had promptly dropped her, declaring that they could not get any further, and that she was a solitary "hermit-crab." Irene,[94] after one or two ventures, realized that Lorna was utterly reserved and uncommunicative, but was content to continue the friendship on a one-sided basis, giving confidences, but receiving none in return. She was a little laughed at in certain quarters on the subject of her chum.

"Hope you like crab sauce."

"We're tickled to bits at the pair of you."

"It won't last long."

"Shall we give you an oyster-opener for a birthday present?"

"You've got the champion chestnut-bur of the school—aren't you full of prickles?"

"Go on!" smiled Irene calmly. "I've been teased all my life by my brother, so I'm pretty well bomb-proof. Say just what you like. I'm sure I don't care."

It really did not trouble Irene that Lorna should cling to this habit of closeness. She had so many affairs of her own in which to be interested. She had spent a glorious half-term holiday with her family in their flat at Naples, and was delighted to describe every detail of her experiences. She chatted about her relations till Lorna knew Mr. and Mrs. Beverley and Vincent absolutely well by hearsay, though she had never met them in the flesh. The accounts of their doings gave her a peep of home life such as she had not hitherto realized.

"Lovely to be you," she ventured once.

"You must come and see us," replied Irene impul[95]sively. "I'll get Mother to ask you some day. Don't look so scared. They wouldn't eat you. Don't you like paying visits? Oh well, of course, if you don't want to come I won't worry you. No, I'm not offended. Why should I be? Let everybody please herself is my motto. Oh, don't apologize, for it really doesn't matter in the very least! I'd far rather people were frank and said what they thought."

"I'm going with you to Pompeii to-morrow at any rate," said Lorna. "I'm glad they've put us both down together for that excursion."

It was part of the educational scheme of Miss Rodgers and Miss Morley that the girls should be taken to certain places of interest in the neighborhood. They were carefully prepared in class beforehand, so that they should thoroughly understand what they were going to see. All the school studied Greek and Roman history, and since Christmas there had been special lectures by Miss Morley on the buried city of Pompeii, illustrated by lantern-slides. But photography, however excellent, is a poor substitute for reality when the latter can be obtained. Had the Villa Camellia been situated in England or America no doubt the pupils would have considered those views a tremendous asset to their history class, but being in the near neighborhood of Naples they were able to "go one better," and have actual expeditions to Pompeii itself. A dozen of the girls, personally conducted by Miss Morley, were to start[96] on Thursday, take their lunch, and make a day of it. Most of those chosen were comparative newcomers to the school, or for some reason had not done the excursion before, so it would be a fresh experience to nearly all of them. Six seniors and six members of the Transition made up the party, with little Désirée Legrand tagged on at the last as a mascot, because Stella and Carrie had pointed out that twelve pupils and one mistress would make thirteen at table if they had tea together, and though Miss Morley had scoffed at such ridiculous superstition, she took Désirée all the same to break the possible bad luck. They had the satisfaction of assembling in the hall for the start exactly as their companions were filing into classrooms.

"Got your nose-bag?" asked Delia, indicating her lunch satchel. "It wouldn't do to leave those behind. I always feel famished when I'm out sightseeing. Hope I shan't eat my lunch before the picnic. Renie, it's no use lugging that camera with you. You won't be allowed to take any photos inside the ruins, so I warn you."

"Miss Morley's taking hers," objected Irene, loath to relinquish the object in question.

"Miss Morley has a special government permit to sketch or photo in Pompeii. Nobody may take the slightest snap-shot or drawing without. I've been once before, so I know, Madam Doubtful. You'll see ever so many officials will ask to look at Miss Morley's ticket. Why? Because the place would[97] get choked up with artists I suppose. And also they want to sell their own photos. You'll be pestered to buy post-cards outside the gates."

"I'd adore to get just one or two snaps," persisted Irene. "I won't take this big camera, but I'll slip my wee one inside my pocket, and see if I find a chance."

"Are you ready, girls?" came Miss Morley's voice from the porch, and the waiting thirteen formed into double line and marched.

They were to go by the electric tram from Fossato to Castellamare, from which it was only a comparatively short drive to Pompeii. The jogging, jolting, little tramcar ran along the coast, linking up several towns and villages and conveying people intent on either business or pleasure. There were many visitors anxious to make the excursion to-day, but the contingent from the Villa Camellia had posted themselves by the statue of Garibaldi in the square, and scrambled for the car as soon as it arrived, boarding it with three hatless Italian girls, two women with orange baskets, a sailor carrying a little boy, and a stout old padre, who apologized prettily for pushing.

"We did those folks from the Hotel Royal," chuckled Delia, sitting on Irene's knee for lack of further accommodation. "Did you ever see a tram fill up quicker? I'm afraid I'm heavy. I know I'm an awful lump. We'll take it in turns, and I'll nurse you after a while. I call this rather priceless.[98] Everybody's good-tempered even if they do hustle. They don't seem to mind people treading on their toes. It's infectious. I catch myself smiling, and I'd jolly well frown as a rule if any one yanked a basket into my back."

"I think it's the climate," remarked Irene. "In a London tram most faces don't look too cheerful, but with this sky overhead people are simply chirping like crickets. It's like a perpetual summer holiday."

The car was rattling along the steep coast road through miles of glorious scenery. On the left was an ultramarine sea, with white-sailed boats, and to the right lay cliffs and olive groves. Some of the trees were covered with catkins, and others had already burst into green leaf; gorgeous yellow genistas clothed the hillsides, and the banks were dappled with blue borage and marigolds. There were so many things to look at from either window of the tram; goats were feeding along the crags, and a gray businesslike battle-ship was wending its way across the harbor in the direction of Naples. They passed through several small towns or villages, getting a vivid impression of the lives of the inhabitants, who, on sunny days, seemed to do much of their domestic work out of doors, and to peel potatoes, wash salads, cook on charcoal braziers, sew, mend shoes, make lace, and pursue many other vocations on the pavements in front of the houses, and so far from being disturbed by onlookers, would[99] smile and even wave friendly hands at the strangers on the tramcar.

"That darling old soul in the green apron blew me a kiss," chuckled Delia. "She looks as happy as a queen, though she's probably living on about ten cents a day."

"Did you see them dressing the baby on the pavement?" squealed Stella. "They were winding it round and round in yards of bandages exactly like old Italian pictures. I didn't know it was done nowadays."

"Oh! Look at the carts drawn by bullocks."

"And the lamb with its fleece all combed out and tied with blue ribbons."

"That's because it's Mid-Lent."

"Don't you see the baby donkey? There! Quick!"

In her efforts to watch everything at once Delia craned her neck through the window of the car and away went her school hat, sailing over a bridge and down into a deep ravine below, lost forever so far as she was concerned, as the tram certainly would not stop and wait while she searched for it.

"You've come down a peg in life, old sport, that's all," laughed Carrie. "In Italy wearing a hat is a sign of gentility. No work-girl ever has one on her head even on Sundays. I offered a cast-off of mine to the bonne at a hotel once, and she eyed it longingly, but said she daren't wear it if she took it, her friends would think it such swank."[100]

"What do they have on in church then?" asked Delia.

"Handkerchiefs, of course. Every Neapolitan has one handy to slip round her head at the church door. It must save millinery bills."

"And they all have the most beautiful hair. Hello! Here we are at the terminus. What a crowd of beggars. They look like brigands waiting to pounce on us. Help!"

Once out of the shelter of the tramcar the girls